What I Did at the Old City,by Urdnot Mordin, Age 5
by Foxfire1
Summary: "We'll name one of the kids after him. Maybe a girl." Unabashed familial fluff.
1. Chapter 1

Hello computer.

My name is Urdnot Mordin. Ammah says I should talk to you. She says words travel faster than ships right now, and there's people in the sky who would like to know that our family is safe and strong. "And BIG!" says Arakh, because he just looked over my shoulder.

We're not all that big. Four in my clutch, and three in the one after that. Ammah says she's not putting up with any more of us until we're old enough to hunt on our own, and Arakh says it's all her fault for making such strong, stubborn babies. (I am not stubborn. My BROTHERS are stubborn.)

Antidote Day was three hands ago, and Ammah and Arakh took us to see the Shroud and the Old City, just like every year. We all broke up some of the dirt around the tower, which is almost as hard as rock, but my claws are the strongest in the clutch, because I'm the oldest. Ammah and the other shamans showed us how to plant seeds there, and how to bleed a little into the soil to show the seeds we expect them to grow.

The Old City already has plants. Ammah says its name has been lost, just like a shaman's, but I like it better than the Shroud anyway. We go there on Antidote Day too, but that's not a shaman thing, that's a parents and hatchlings thing. We move rocks to unblock the stream, which SOMEDAY I will find out where it comes from, and splash in the water. Last year Ammah tried to meditate, until one of the babies tried to swim in the sacred well and she had to pull her out. This year Ammah said she would come back later to meditate. Ammah says next year she'll take me to see the pictures in the tunnels, but Arakh wants to take us hunting for thresher maws instead. My little brother Wrait (he's bigger than me, but I'm older, which is most important) wanted to go this year. Arakh told him that he had a quad, but he wanted Ammah to let him keep HIS. Next year I want to see the pictures AND chase thresher maws.

I have to stop talking now. I want to go ask Arakh what a quad is.

Bye, computer.


	2. Why My Brother Is a Big Stupidhead

Hello computer,

Ammah says I have to talk to you until I figure out why I shouldn't have punched my brother. She didn't say anything about headbutting him, though. And he deserved it anyway.

But I didn't punch Uncle Grunt. I'm not STUPID.

(Wrait bit him, though.)

Uncle Grunt came to talk to Arakh about something he was doing for the female clan and when he got bored of talking he played with me and my brothers. We played Trap the Pyjak (I'm good at that, especially when I get to be the pyjak), and then everybody played Hunt the Thresher Maw with Arakh, who was _really_ surprised. Arakh makes a good thresher maw.

But then they started talking again, which is usually really boring. Except Uncle Grunt was talking about the territory he was clearing for the female clan, because most of them want space but not all of them want to have mates like Ammah does. So Arakh sent some engineers plus Uncle Grunt to make them a new clan-hold, and he's been fighting wild varren while the engineers do the boring stuff.

_I_ want to do stuff like that. Arakh says he'll use us for tomkah treads if we try to fight thresher maws before we're big, but varren are different. So I looked at Wrait and he looked at me and we both snuck away to Grunt's tomkah without talking. Wrait is a stupidhead sometimes, but you don't have to explain very much to him.

So we kept really, really quiet while the tomkah drove, and when it stopped we climbed out. Uncle Grunt called us a couple of little pyjaks, but he was smiling really big when he did, so I didn t mind. Wrait said he was too big to be a pyjak, and Grunt said that might be true but HE was bigger. When they started talking about humps I went away to explore.

I thought the engineer stuff would be boring, but it wasn't. They dug a way bigger hole than I ever have, with tunnels for all the mothers and hatchlings and a big open middle. There s strong walls and guns to keep the big animals away. When it s done, even pyjaks won t be able to get in, but right now they need Uncle Grunt to kill the big animals.

Grunt let us chase pyjaks for a while, and we played Shiagur and the Salarians too. But then we heard another tomkah come, and my other two brothers climbed out looking jealous before Ammah climbed out looking mad. Uncle Grunt looked at her and looked at me and grabbed me by the scruff before I could run away. He couldn't grab Wrait's scruff because Wrait's hump has started to grow, so he got him by the ankles instead, and THAT's when Wrait bit him.

Uncle Grunt put us down and said "sorry, kid, but I'm not stupid enough to make your mother mad". And Wrait said "Well, Arakh is!" and Uncle Grunt laughed so hard that for a minute I thought we were out of trouble. But then my brother Vakar asked what Ammah was going to do to us, and I couldn't headbutt him fast enough to make him be quiet, so instead I hit him for getting us back in trouble. And Ammah got all mad again, and THAT's why I have to sit here and talk to the computer again, until I can figure out why I wasn't supposed to punch my brother.

It might take a while.

Bye, computer.


	3. Why We Brought the Varren Home

Hello computer,

Arakh said I have to talk to you because _someone_ has to tell Ammah what happened when she gets back from the shaman thing, and he plans to drink too much ryncol for it to be him. I asked if I could have some ryncol and he said no. Then I asked if the varren could have some ryncol and he said NO! and put me in here.

So what happened was we found the varren. It wasn't my fault.

Okay, it was some my fault, but mostly it was Wrait's and a little bit the kakliosaur's. Because Arakh asked Uncle Grunt to watch us and he said no, and he asked the mother-clan to watch us and they said no and threatened to collapse a den-tunnel on him, and he asked the shamans to watch us, and _we_ said no and ran away and m-o-u-n-t-e-d a g-r-o-u-n-d a-s-s-a-u-l-t on a tomkah instead. So Arakh took us to watch the kakliosaurs. Which are really big and ferocious and one day I will ride one around and trample my enemies.

Wrait and I heard a kakliosaur fighting, and we wanted to see if it was a thresher maw larva or something exciting, so we jumped out to track it. But it wasn't a big fight, it just dug up a varren den and ate the pups. The dam was still alive and trying to fight it even with her pups dead and it, it...made me sad, so I roared and threw rocks at the kakliosaur until I felt better. The kakliosaur got mad at us and we looked for something we could climb and still reach rocks to throw. And then Arakh heard it and came and roared even louder, so everything was all right.

But Arakh was _mad_, even after I explained about the tracking and the fighting and everything. So I told him about the dead pups and their dam still fighting. I tried to tell him about being sad and throwing rocks, but I couldn't. When I showed him the used-to-be-den, he looked around and said "Heh". And when Arakh says "heh", you either get what you want or you get in really REALLY big trouble, so we waited to see which one. He looked at the dead pups and the live mother and got really quiet until I thought we _were_ in trouble, but then he put medigel on the varren where she was bleeding and carried her all the way back to the tomkah.

Wrait says if she dies overnight, we won't have to worry about firstmeal tomorrow. I said I would _bite_ him if he tries to eat my varren. Arakh says he thinks she'll heal, and she'll be able to hunt all right on three legs.

When she feels better, I will take her hunting with me. I'm going to name her Shiagur.


End file.
